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Music » Watch me burn » At The Stake Cd - Rare & Female fronted !

A Cult Metal album if there ever was one. Female Fronted BEFORE it was cool !!

Pay big buck$$ for this on the net or just normal price in our store !

"I love it! But what the hell *is* it? - 92%"

PorcupineOfDoom, May 11th, 2015

"I'm not exactly a fan of grindcore. Everything about the genre just sounds completely wrong to my ears, from the rapid but annoyingly repetitive drumming to the two minute songs to the occasional inclusion of pig squeals. So when that's one of the largest influences in a band, you'd tend to steer clear of them, right? Especially if one of the other influences devolves from another genre that you dislike, that'd just be common sense. But for some reason I decided to at least listen to what Watch Me Burn had to offer before writing them off, and now I've ended up writing this review for them.

So, why am I here? Simply because this is one of the strangest and most original sounding albums I've ever come across. It's absolutely brilliant. When I think of sludge and grindcore, combining them in one band is the last thing I'd ever think of doing. It just sounds so wrong to put them together, what with the huge contrast in musical style, but for some reason Watch Me Burn do it perfectly. On paper it sounds like a disjointed mess, but in reality it all flows well and leads nicely from one passage to another on each and every track.

I liked Acid Bath's When the Kite String Pops a lot, and I'm glad to hear that the southern influences that they used in their riffs feature prominently here too. On many of the songs here, it's these influences that make the song so memorable, and 'Wolf That Ate the Sun' is my favourite song from At the Stake due to the patterns in the riffs. Generally the riffs do have some gaps due to only having one guitarist in the band, but the bass plugs them very well, essentially acting as a rhythm guitar for a large part of the album.

Normally the drumming is the thing I hate most about grindcore. It always seems to me like the drummer does nothing but sit and wallop the kit as fast as he possibly can, normally with a particularly irritating rat-a-tat-tat noise. Here that is thankfully not a problem, and there's quite a few different styles that come into effect. Occasionally the grindcore drumming does come into effect, but it never lasts long and is countered with some slower doom oriented playing and occasionally some more punky stuff. Most of it is executed very skilfully, and the music really benefits from having some competent drumming behind the guitars.

Obviously, I couldn't review this album without mentioning the vocals. Sarah has a raspy hiss which can at times be off-putting, but it fits into the somewhat manic style of music very well. She reminds me a lot of Tristessa from Astarte, albeit harsher and more aggressive. There's a definitively evil sense about the shrieks, and I guess it wouldn't be entirely wrong to use the term witch-like considering the band's name and title of the album.

One of the key elements to this fitting together is the infusion of funk/jazz. Every now and again the music begins to slow down and everything will come to a standstill besides a few peaceful, jazz-flavoured grooves. Again, it adds to the weirdness on offer throughout At the Stake, but it links surprisingly well with the sludge. For at least the first handful of songs, the album sounds like one long track split into different sections.

Overall, this is a very different album and well worth seeking out. It's a shame that Watch Me Burn have since split up, but I hope that more people will find this album and appreciate it as much as I did, regardless of which metal genres they normally listen to. I've never heard anything else like it."